The Search Continues for a Roadside THC Detection Device

Since the legal­iza­tion of recre­ation­al mar­i­jua­na began in Col­orado, the police have been search­ing for a method or device that would help them detect mar­i­jua­na use in car crash vic­tims. They’d like to obtain some­thing as effi­cient as a breath­a­lyz­er that is used to detect alco­hol. Their mis­sion, as always, is to help keep Colorado’s high­ways safe.

So far, they have not made a lot of progress.

Major Steve Gar­cia, train­ing ser­vices branch com­man­der for Col­orado State Patrol, said that when pos­si­bly high dri­vers are pulled over, it’s up to them whether they want to be involved in the state’s test­ing. Gar­cia believes that crim­i­nal defense attor­neys may be advis­ing peo­ple not to par­tic­i­pate in being test­ed.

The high­way safe­ty man­ag­er for the Col­orado Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion indi­cates that “Col­orado law enforce­ment is high­ly trained to detect peo­ple under the influ­ence of alco­hol, and we’re mak­ing some sig­nif­i­cant gains in train­ing offi­cers to also rec­og­nize peo­ple that are impaired by oth­er sub­stances.”

There’s no doubt that the num­ber of dri­vers in Col­orado who have been involved in car crash­es has increased sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the past few years, accord­ing to the Den­verite. The num­ber of dri­vers who test­ed pos­i­tive for THC and were involved in wrecks where some­one died jumped by 80 per­cent, from 55 in 2013 to 99 in 2015, accord­ing to data report­ed to the Nation­al High­way Traf­fic Safe­ty Admin­is­tra­tion. How­ev­er, that does not con­firm that the dri­vers were under the influ­ence at the time of the crash. The only way to deter­mine if some­one is over the lim­it of 5 ng of THC is with a blood test, and the dri­vers are allowed to refuse that test.

The Col­orado State Patrol began a pilot pro­gram in Jan­u­ary of 2015 that includes two com­po­nents:

Edu­ca­tion of troop­ers to help rec­og­nize if peo­ple are under the influ­ence of THC

Devices that mea­sure THC con­tent in sali­va

There is also on-going edu­ca­tion to the pub­lic regard­ing “drugged dri­ving.” Many peo­ple believe that dri­ving under the influ­ence doesn’t affect them (because they are not “falling down” as they might be with alco­hol), or that they actu­al­ly dri­ve bet­ter if they have been smok­ing pot.

There is still a long way to go for law enforce­ment to get their arms around this, but there is grow­ing evi­dence that dri­ving while under the influ­ence of THC is not only dan­ger­ous, but has been and is con­tribut­ing to fatal auto­mo­bile acci­dents.

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